Current Events > Are we ready to admit that Vincent is the worst FF7 party member? *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

He has absolutely no story relevance. He's just some goth guy that you wake up from his basement and then he tags along until the very end of the game, where you finally get some context and backstory on him, but even then it's incredibly brief and ultimately has no bearing on the overall plot.

If anything, they went out of their way to make Vincent less interesting and strip personality away from him in the final version of the game.

In another early draft, Vincent was a detective working on supernatural cases, most of them bogus. His last job was investigating Shinra's secrets to expose them to the world for the benefit of a rival company. Vincent's relationship with Hojo would have gone back to the Midgar University medical department, and then the Shinra Research Lab. Using leverage with Hojo's assistant, Lucrecia, Vincent delved deeper into Hojo's work. Hojo captured Lucrecia and used her as part of the Jenova Project, and Vincent tried to rescue her, but Hojo puts him to sleep for thirty years.

...

When the party found him, Vincent had no idea what year it was, or even that he had vile experiments done to him. He would join the party to get revenge on Hojo and find out Lucrecia's fate. The player would not know Vincent could transform into monsters, and when it happened, Vincent would be the most shocked of all. His transformations could carry outside of battle, changing cutscenes depending upon his form. In this draft, Vincent's personality was wildly different with a far more suave and talkative demeanor. He would even go out of his way to flirt with female party members.

"Oh, but he's a secret character, so you can't expect much from him!"

Bullshit. The game's other secret character, Yuffie, has an entire side-story in Wutai, and is required to obtain the Leviathan Materia. Vincent's side story consists of a few cutscenes, one line of dialogue with Hojo, and is required to obtain nothing more than his ultimate weapon and final Limit Break.

"But Cait Sith is a much dumber design and doesn't fit with the rest of the party!"

That's subjective. My opinion is that Vincent is just as poorly-fitting against the rest of the party as well, and just looks like a tryhard 13-year-old was asked to draw somebody "cool".

He's also pretty terrible in combat. He's specced to be a party mage (probably intended to replace Aerith in the lineup once she... leaves), but Cait Sith is better at this role than him; the dumb cat has an equal Magic stat, higher Strength so he can bop things on the head when needed, and higher HP so he can make better use of Summon Materia. Hell, Cait can even work as an off-tank as well, since his massive HP pool lets him soak up hits with Cover in the back row.

"But Cait Sith's Limit Break is awful!"

I would argue that Vincent's is as well. You lose full control of him for an entire fight, and it's entirely possible that having the wrong Limit level set can absolutely fuck you over. Even if you do have him on a good Limit for offense against whatever you're fighting, there's still the risk that Cloud and Party Member #3 will get KO'd, and Vincent will have no way to revive them. You're entirely at the mercy of watching the game play itself and hoping you get a win, instead of a Game Over or an infinite loop where Vincent and the boss keep healing each other.

At least with Cait, his Limit Break is a one-and-done hit, and in the worst case scenario where you get a Game Over from Slots, it's an immediate effect and not a prolonged one.

(Nanaki is still my choice for party (red) mage over both of them, though.)

"But the other games expand on his character more!"

Don't care, we're talking about FF7 itself, not the supplementary material. He's a terrible character in the base game.

Vincent sucks.

It's Yuffie she steals your stuff and isn't even a Ninja. At least Vincent is brooding. I guess and optional.

He has a cool design, is a victim of Shinra to a really horrible degree, and beyond Limit Breaks all characters are basically the same combat wise.

He was fine

VII has no bad party members.

Jeff_AKA_Snoopy posted...

He has a cool design, is a victim of Shinra to a really horrible degree, and beyond Limit Breaks all characters are basically the same combat wise.

He was fine

He's a cringe edgelord that's only cool to moody 13 year olds

Kain_Highwind posted...

He's a cringe edgelord that's only cool to moody 13 year olds

Yes but that was the style at the time

I always recruit Vincent every time I play through FF7 but I don't think I've ever actually used him.

It used to be really cool to have secret characters. I wish that was still a thing

His ultimate weapon gimmick annoys me too.

I remember that since it was really easy to get 9999 damage that the best way to judge a character was based on their final Limit Break. Based on that, the best party members were something in order like, Cloud (Omnislash), Barrett (Catastrophe), Cid (Highwind), and Yuffie (All Creation).

Everyone else was just kind of meh in that regard. Note I leave out Tifa because her limit is kind of up to chance, even if it can cause high damage. There is no randomness to the above character's Limits. But yeah, Vincent's Limits once you reach max damage is kinda weak. Looks cool, at least.

Aeris

only good for human shield and healing powers then dies
after that? Cait Seth or whatever the fuck his game was

Music_Rock_Cat posted...

Aeris

only good for human shield and healing powers then dies
after that? Cait Seth or whatever the fuck his game was

Aerith's final limit made the party invincible, so that's not really useless. Cait Sith is most definitely more useless than Vincent, however.

I never unlocked vincent in my playthrough way back when. Since I didnt really use a guide and unlocking him without one is pretty hard, or at least it was for me since I couldnt figure out his puzzle. Not helped how under lv I was since I ran from everything, and was only maybe sub lv30 by the end of disc 3

Hell I didnt even know he was a party member until the advent children movie came out.

Xenogears15 posted...

Aerith's final limit made the party invincible, so that's not really useless. Cait Sith is most definitely more useless than Vincent, however.

I actually never bothered to get her final limit cause of how soon she dies. Knights of the Round I only got once in the 90s then after that I got mad with the chocobo farms now days on teh switch verison.

They made Vincent's story even worse by having Lucrecia dump him for Hojo, getting pregnant with Hojo's kid and then Hojo kills him. Vincent's really a wasted character.

Admit?

At least Vincent had a spinoff game that made him the absolute coolest mofo in the entire FF7 universe, right...?

I wish he was wearing the Turks suit instead of that stupid vampire outfit.

Xenogears15 posted...

Aerith's final limit made the party invincible, so that's not really useless.

Which you'll never actually get in a normal playthrough lmao

ChrisTaka posted...

Which you'll never actually get in a normal playthrough lmao

I got it literally every time I played the game other than the first. *shrug*

Since when was usefulness based on max damage? Heh I know a lot of this comes down to a person's own disposition. But I would never use a character purely on the fact that they can do max damage.

Vincent ranks low on my list for FF7 party members. But he has a few moments where Deathblow + 255% hit accuracy weapons = guaranteed big damage. Thats always fun.

That's why Dirge of Cerberus exists and, whether we like it or not, the "FF7 canon" officially includes all those awful spin-off games, so when we're talking Vincent it's not longer just isolated to his first appearance but also includes everything else he's involved in.

I realized it when I actually play OG FF7

My first exposure to him was Advent Children and the likes, and he seemed cool as hell, then when I recruited him in OG, he was anything but, both gameplay and story wise

Yuffie was cool immediately by virtue of being a ninja.

He's Sephie's dad in the remake, im calling it

Yuffie was more plot irrelevant

Vincent could've been given a bit more focus, and he's not my favorite character by any means, but he's not downright bad like Cait Sith.

Irony posted...

Yuffie was more plot irrelevant

It's true.

The only reason she has a narrative purpose is to tie Wutai in, and even that is completely negligible in the original FFVII.

Story wise, he got his own game, leave poor goth kid alone.

Gameplay wise, yeah he sucks.

Irony posted...

Yuffie was more plot irrelevant

Yuffie had an entire extended sidequest in Wutai and was inserted into scenes and conversations after her recruitment. Vincent was not.

GrandConjuraton posted...

It's true.

The only reason she has a narrative purpose is to tie Wutai in, and even that is completely negligible in the original FFVII.

One of the things I like most about Remake was how Wutai seems more relevant. Hopefully in the third game (Reunion?) they make it even more plot relevant.

i wanted to use Vincent but finding out Deathblow + SniperCR doesn't actually kill (most) things instantly kind of took the wind out of his sails <_< Like obviously you don't want to be able to one shot like Dragons and late/end game enemies, that'd undermine the game but the utility of that is never really there past the first cave you can use him in